15 May – 05 June 2023
Pinkhouse
Cavalry Hills Village, Makati City
There is no room for haste whatsoever in For All The Things That Echo Back, a solo exhibit by SHALIMAR GONZAGA. Everything is focused on fulfilling her no-nonsense urge of approaching nature with the intent to inquire. Investigate. Explore. Reflect.
Each of the eight works in the exhibit are elegant arrangements of digital images transformed into oil, framed with solid colors of total detachment (yellow ochre etc.). All works point toward a penetrating calmness. For her, the experience of the world onscreen (and therefore through the eyes of others) is as real as the physical reality surrounding us. Everything for her is valid and deemed worthy to be saved from being stranded in the black hole of the web and to be reborn, injected with new life, finding a new home in her canvases.
A unifying characteristic with all the works is the consideration of habitat. “Habitat” which in ecology is pretty much everything: the place where things live, that which provides all sustenance and energy. A place without which there is no home.
Shalimar Gonzaga’s landscapes are more than just romantic stand-ins for human emotion. They are like songs, and like a song, it is a long and ever-changing story of infinite parts. If engaged properly, the song is reflected back to you, telling its story, what might be hidden, and where to leave the landscape untouched. It is a beautiful tradition.